This invention provides a new packaged frozen food product, principally for dessert use, that makes the features of soft serve ice cream available in the home.
The new product is a frozen food within a container from which it can be extruded at home freezer temperatures. More particularly, the packaged food product of the invention has a container with a collapsible chamber fitted with a spout and filled with the frozen food. The frozen food is extrudable from the container upon collapse of the chamber, for serving directly into a dish or onto a cone, at home freezer temperatures. Manual pressure typically is sufficient to collapse the chamber to dispense the frozen food. The frozen food typically is a dessert that emulates features of soft serve ice cream but at such lower temperatures as to be suitable for prolonged storage in store and home freezers. The dessert food is described further in the pending application for "Frozen Dessert Product" Ser. No. 210,846 filed Nov. 26, 1980; now U.S. Pat. 4,346,120; and in the two continuations-in-part thereof filed concurrently with this application and entitled "Frozen Dessert Food", Ser. No. 228,557 filed Jan. 26, 1981 now U.S. Pat. No. 4,400,406, and "Dietetic Frozen Dessert Food", Ser. No. 228,550 filed Jan. 26, 1981 now U.S. Pat. No. 4,400,405. The contents of all three said applications are incorporated herein by this reference.
Soft serve ice cream, or simply soft serve, is a highly popular dessert with wide appeal. The soft serve industry has grown to such an extent that it is recognized as a distinct segment of the frozen dessert field and encompasses manufacturers and retailers of soft serve products, and suppliers of processing equipment for the product.
Distinguishing features of conventional soft serve are that it is frozen in a special soft serve freezer, is dispensed by extrusion at carefully chosen sub-freezing temperatures and stands up on a cone or dish upon extrusion. Soft serve generally is consumed almost immediately after extrusion from the soft serve freezer and hence essentially at the extrusion temperature.
Although soft serve of this character has been marketed for many years, it is still available only from stores having special freezers that dispense the product for immediate consumption. This is because the product generally is dispensed at temperatures between 16.degree. F. and 21.degree. F. (-9.degree. C. to -6.degree. C.). At lower temperatures, the product is no longer sufficiently soft. Conventional soft serve accordingly is not suited for sale from grocery store freezers for home storage and dispensing. Home freezers maintain temperatures generally around 0.degree. F. to 10.degree. F. (-18.degree. C. to -12.degree. C.),and store freezers, which as used herein includes grocery store, supermarket, and restaurant freezers, are generally at colder temperatures.
Others have expended considerable effort to develop a soft serve product for home use, but apparently without success. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,146,652; 4,154,863; 4,199,605; 4,199,604; 4,145,454; and 3,993,793 and U.K. Patent Specification No. 1,508,437 disclose frozen food products which supposedly are softer than usual at freezer temperatures. However, none is understood to provide a soft serve-like product for home consumption suitable for purchase from a store freezer and storage in a home freezer. There is considerable other published art on the subject of frozen desserts, particularly ice cream. A recent text is Ice Cream, Second Edition by W. S. Arbuckle, Ph.D., published in 1972 by the Avi Publishing Company, Inc., Westport, Connecticut.
It is accordingly an object of this invention to provide a packaged frozen food product suited for storage in a home freezer and for dispensing by extrusion from the package directly after removal from that freezer.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a packaged soft serve frozen dessert product suited for home freezer storage.
The invention further seeks to provide a packaged frozen food product which emulates features of conventional soft serve but for serving at the significantly lower temperatures standard in home freezers.
Another object of the invention is to provide a packaged frozen food product having a container with a collapsible food-filled chamber and which is economical for large-scale commercial marketing for home consumption.
Other objects of the invention will in part be obvious and will in part appear hereinafter.
The invention accordingly comprises a packaged frozen food product possessing the features, the combination and the relation of elements exemplified in the product hereinafter described. The scope of the invention is indicated in the claims.